


halloween in hawkins

by quadrille



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exes, F/M, Family Feels, Grief/Mourning, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Jealousy, Old Friends, Parenthood, Post-Season/Series 02, Pre-Canon, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 17:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12586628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quadrille/pseuds/quadrille
Summary: Four different times Jim & Joyce celebrated Halloween, over the course of 25 years. From high school through post-S2.





	halloween in hawkins

**JUNIOR YEAR**  
The Hawkins high school dance is lame, but that’s okay: no one intends to show up on time for it.

They go for a drive down dark and winding roads instead, the glow from the headlights illuminating the tree-lined paths ahead. Jim’s arm is slung out the open window despite the biting cold, and the wind whips Joyce’s hair. Their cohort gathers in an abandoned cornfield (appropriate for the season), where they perch on an abandoned tractor and split a bottle of Old Crow whiskey, passing it from hand to hand, sharing that surreptitious rush and the heat in the chest and the gasping burn of the liquor.

When Jim slides off the cold metal of the tractor’s hood and holds an open palm to Joyce, she descends like a princess coming down from her chariot. Someone’s got their car radio playing, volume turned to max so they can hear the music despite the occasional crackle of static, out here in the middle of nowhere. She steps into his arms and they start dancing to that tinny song; he spins her in circles around the well-trodden field until she’s dizzy, laughing. When they close the distance between them, Joyce steals a cigarette out of his coat pocket and Jim blurts out a “Hey,” but she gives him that mischievous smile around the flash of a lighter and he’ll forgive her anything.

Their group eventually rolls into the dance late, consciously steady as they walk past the school chaperones, half-drunk but performatively sober.

Once they’re in the darkness of the auditorium, decked out in streamers and fake spiderwebs, they can’t keep their hands off each other — under the strobing lights Joyce’s hands creep under his shirt, and he has to tip his head so the cowboy hat won’t fall off when they kiss. He rucks up her ruffled black witch’s skirt and she laughs and it’s the best goddamn sound he’s ever heard. “C’mon, Jim. Not here.”

“What, you wanna head out back and sneak under the bleachers?”

“Shhh.” But she’s smiling against his mouth, rising up on tiptoe to reach him, and they just can’t get enough. Jim swipes his hat and puts it on her head, where it clashes horrifically with her robes and fishnets, but he doesn’t care.

 

 **SENIOR YEAR**  
By next Halloween, she’s seeing Lonnie fucking Byers and no one in their class goes to the official school dance at all. It’s a house party instead, chaotic and rambunctious — someone’s parents are (unwisely) off at the Great Lakes for the weekend, and the seniors have come out in full force. When Jim weaves his way into the living room he sees Lonnie’s possessive arm slung around her, the way the boy pulls her back against him, never letting her get too far out of his reach or too close to any other guy especially.

Half an hour later, Jim is standing out in the backyard, smoking, cigarette after cigarette forming a pile of ash at his feet as he leans against the banister and listens to the music, alone.

 

 **1984**  
It’s over twenty years later, and once again he’s watching her with someone else: Bob Newby leaning in to press a kiss against Joyce’s cheek, a dainty little guy who wanders back to his car to keep loading up the hatchback with supplies: candy, decorations, snacks.

“Got everything ready for Halloween?” Hopper asks, bemused. He’s standing by Joyce’s cashier at Melvald’s, both of them watching the other man wrestle with the trunk door in the parking lot.

“He’s dressing up as a vampire, of all things.” 

“And you? Vampira, maybe? She’s a stunner.” He gives her a crooked smile.

“Oh, no, I’m not dressing up. Not really my thing.” A laugh, half-amused, part-self-conscious. “How about you?”

“Nah. I’ve got some fieldwork.” Literally. And then a night in with El, crappy TV and crappy candy, but he can’t think of anything else he’d like to do more.

Bob comes trotting back, arms full of fake spiderwebs. “Hiya, Jim,” he says brightly, and Hopper touches the brim of his hat automatically in greeting.

The Radioshack manager’s a good guy. Hop is happy for them. He swears he is.

Still, though, as the police chief walks past them and out the door, he can’t help but feel that knot of tension in his jaw, the ache of muscles he hadn’t known he’d been clenching.

 

 **ONE YEAR LATER**  
It’s true, what he’d said about PTSD. Hopper had known more than a few men from his unit in ‘Nam who suffered nightmares, cold sweats, who were antsy and shaky during Fourth of July fireworks.

He’d thought he’d dodged that particular bullet, but then there was last year’s blow-up: the way he’d kicked furniture while shouting at the kid, and his mind became a curious blank, everything narrowed down to just the blood pounding in his ears and the panic tightening his hands into fists that slammed her door as he thought of El but still saw Sara. Not realising until afterwards what he’d done, when the shame came creeping in. (He’d realised, then, that it manifests in different ways.)

So he’d learned his lesson: they had to keep her in hiding for one more year, but communication is a go this time. When he brushes his teeth late at night, he can sometimes hear the murmur of young voices crackling over the radio in El’s room (Jane’s room). The boys and Max come over sometimes for… Well, he’s still not entirely sure _what_ , but they bring figurines and paper and pencil and those monster manuals, and they seem to have fun. Hop stays out of their way, holing up in his bedroom with a book, or maybe just goes for a night-time drive. Sometimes he grabs dinner with Joyce.

But the closer they get to October and that fated month, November, the more tightly-wound Joyce becomes. Girding herself for an anvil to drop out of the sky, for disaster to hit them again.

Tonight, on Halloween, he’s driven over with Jane and Mike in the backseat (huddled and whispering to each other, punctuated with the occasional laugh) over to the Byers place. Harrington’s picked up Dustin and Lucas and Max, and they’re all congregating here to assemble the group. The kids are out the door practically before the car’s rolled to a full stop, and Hop follows them to the house.

There are good days and there are bad days. He’s learned that. More good than bad, lately, but when Joyce opens the door, he sees how thin and drawn she seems; the smudges under her eyes that mean she hasn’t been sleeping properly. Still.

Jonathan isn’t babysitting this year but getting ready for a party, while the rest of the kids mill around him and kick up a clamour, jostling for space in front of the bathroom mirror. Joyce glances in through the front door, watching her sons with a forlorn look, and Hopper takes up position beside her. “Can tell you want to go with them,” he says quietly and she jolts, looking guiltily at him.

“Can you blame me?”

“Not at all. I went a little crazy with El last year. Still trying to tell myself that it’s okay, that she’s safe, and that Doc came through on his bargain so I can relax. But it’s rough.”

They’re standing on the porch outside while kids’ voices ring out indoors, putting the finishing touches on their costumes. They’re dressed as their characters, so his daughter’s carrying a magic staff and wearing a star-speckled hood. She’s a mage tonight. She’s been in school with them for two months now, and this is approaching normal at a rate that’s almost terrifying.

And yet November is just around the corner, and he’s too-aware that this is the time of year when everything tends to go wrong.

Unthinking, Hopper hands over his cigarette to Joyce. It’s become something of a ritual, when her nerves are too shot. Her hands shake a little around the cigarette and she draws in a breath, her lips touching where his have been. His shoulder leans against hers, keeping her warm.

“Bob and I stayed in last year,” she says suddenly, addressing her words to the darkness ahead of them. She isn’t looking at him, and he can feel her tense up even further. “We gave out candy to the trick or treaters. He was so excited. He bought all those decorations from Melvald’s and then put them all up. I…”

His hand finds her shoulder, squeezes once.

Hop was originally going to go to the diner (not the bar; he’s made some changes). To kill time and distract himself before picking up Jane again, but now he’s reconsidering. He’s not immune to this sort of thing, after all, and he’s been anxious too. “D’you want some company while the kids are out? I don’t like the thought of you just sitting here alone.”

“It’s no trouble, Hop, really,” she says automatically, but he knows Joyce by now, knows how she tends to build up these walls, so he nudges her with an elbow.

“Like hell.”

“Hop.”

“I’m serious. Either come with me to the diner, or let me stick around. Can’t promise I’m as good company as the kids, but.”

Joyce finally relents, the smallest smile fluttering around her mouth. “Okay. And I see you’re still not one for costumes. Do you ever even take that police hat off?”

“Sometimes,” he says, and removes it and plants it on her head, then follows her indoors.

Later that night, the kids have left and the adults are seated on the sofa. The house isn’t decorated. The TV is on for white noise, and they’re nursing a couple bottles of Schlitz that he brought over. “This takes me back,” she says, thoughtful at the taste. It’s always been his favourite. They left a bowl of candy outside, a handwritten sign labeled _PLEASE TAKE_. The sight of all the kids in their costumes might have been charming, but the sound of the doorbell rattles Joyce too much.

She’s sitting sideways on the sofa, legs outstretched and warm-socked feet in his lap, slightly less tightly-wound than usual. For the longest time they talk circles around the things that are really bothering them — but, inevitably, they wind up on the subject. “We weren’t even together that long last year, just a few months, but…” Joyce trails off. _But._

He knows what she means, though. It was gruesome, it was bloody. Newby didn’t deserve that.

“That night we were exorcising Will,” she says, because there’s no other way to put it, “and you and Eleven went to the gate. I just kept thinking about that damned lab, and what if you died there too, right after him.” Her fingers keep playing with the beer bottle, peeling off the wrapper. He glances across the sofa at her.

“I’m right here, Joyce.”

“I _know_ , but… I just don’t know what I’d do. You’re always here for me.” A sad smile. “No matter what it is. Listening to me about the lights, and believing me. Finding Will. Coming to all his appointments. Fixing the hole in the wall. Taking me out for dinner when the kids are at the arcade. Keeping me company outside the Snow Ball. Keeping me company tonight. And you never ask for anything in return.”

“It’s not a favour,” he says.

“It sure feels like one.”

“No. Shit, you think this is just for you?” He laughs, short and abrupt. “I’m just as much a mess as you are, Joyce. Maybe even more, judging by… before. Hanging out here with you stops me from driving around behind them and stalking my own kid, or getting piss-drunk at the local dive. So, thanks.” He pats her knee.

Joyce withdraws, pulling her legs back under her, and he feels the brief sting of rejection — a flicker of fear, like a drop of ink in their comfortable dynamic, did he just cross a line — but then she moves closer instead. His heart leaps in his chest, once.

But she just settles into the crook of his arm as if she was meant to be there, settling against the notch of his shoulder, face leaning against the comforting rise-and-fall of his chest — so familiar, from both the past year and twenty years ago — and he breathes in the smell of her hair, and this is good too. More than.

They talk and eat leftover candy and watch TV until she falls asleep with his arm around her and the night rolls on without any terrifying phonecalls or radio summons or doorbells, and he realises he’d be happy to stay here forever.


End file.
